Word Travels, I'm in Love

When we were ten, they asked again and we answered - rock star, cowboy, or in my case, gold medalist. But now that we've grown up, they want a serious answer. Well, how 'bout this: who the hell knows?!

-Jessica Stanley, Eclipse movie

Well, I think hell did a whisper to me. I know what I wanna do later on. I wanna do something like what Robin Esrock and Julia Dimon do on World Travels, being travel writers. Although the salary is not that great, but isn’t it great being able to do what you like? Go around the world, breath different air, see different sceneries, and the greatest thing is write down everything you fell and change other’s perception based on yours! Great, isn’t it?

Everybody want to change the world into better living place, right? Even Obama do.

Change the world! Change the world! Change the world!

And being a travel writer is one of the way to change the world into better living place. How come? Okay, let’s think it over. By traveling around the world, we can explore every single puzzle around. We can go to the isolated places, places which never come to one’s mind as tourist destination, then find out what are interesting about the places, then write them down. People who read our writing will think over about the places and soon, they will be courious and find out the places by themselves. An isolated place suddenly become a well-known place. The other thing is we can go to a controversial place, a place which is famous because of its negative side or its exclusiveness. Jordan for example. Jordan is well-known as Moslem country. People’s perception about Jordan is about a country where everybody, includeed its teenagers, lives based on Moslem regulation, the women wear their veils everywhere, no entertainment, and so on. We can go there, then try to blend with its people to find out how they live actually. After that, we write down what we found. It will give new information to the world. That Jordan isn’t only about Moslem. It’s people has varieties of entertainment as well, but a bit different from what Western has. There are unveiled women as well. It simply gives someone else a new information.

Okay, I think it’s enough for the English part.

Jadi, intinya, saya pengen nglakuin apa yang Esrock dan Dimon lakukan di Word Travels. Jalan-jalan ngider ke mana-mana, nyobain ini itu, belajar ini itu, trus bikin catatan-catatan kecil di note, trus lanjut bikin laporan perjalanan on the fly home. Lalu e-mail tulisan itu ke majalah/koran/media cetak lain. Tulisan dicetak. Dibaca orang. Kita jadi ikut mempromosikan suatu tempat ke mata dunia. Asik banget kan?

Akan lebih asik lagi kalo selain menjadi travel writer, juga menjadi seorang “jumper”. Pernah liat film judulnya Jumper? Nha “jumper” yang saya maksud sama seperti jumper judul film itu. Jadi, bisa lakukan apa yang disukai sekaligus kerja, tapi dengan cara yang hemat. Nggak perlu bayar biaya perjalanan, kan bisa langsung “loncat” ke tempat yang dituju. Nggak perlu bayar sewa penginapan juga, kan bisa “loncat” PP. Hemat kan?

Okay, back to reality. Skip bagian “loncat-loncat”.

Karena Word Travels juga saya jadi pengen ber-VAIO ria. Bukannya saya nggak bersyukur atas leppy saya nan unyu ini, tapi karena liat Esrock sama Dimone bertempur bersama VAIO merahnya saya jadi jatuh cinta sama VAIO. Kesannya bandel, tahan gempa dan tsunami gitu. Sebenernya nggak cuma jatuh cinta sama VAIO sih, tapi sama kameranya juga. Tapi untuk satu ini, alhamdulillah saya udah punya, jadi saya nggak sejatuh bangun seperti ke si VAIO.

Kesimpulannya, demi satu kontainer Beng-Beng, saya pengen jadi travel writer. Akhirnya saya punya cita-cita yang logis di masa-masa persiapan masa depan nan krusial ini.